


Ice

by Edonohana



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Undead Owen Harper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Owen takes care of Tosh after the events of "Exit Wounds," which they both survive. For certain values of survival in Owen's case.
Relationships: Owen Harper/Toshiko Sato
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31
Collections: Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020





	Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



Tosh’s eyelids were heavy as overpacked suitcases. She struggled for what felt like hours just to get the strength to lift them, and then she discovered that, additionally, they were stuck together. She let out what she thought would be a groan of frustration, but it came out in a kind of rusty squeak that no one but her could have heard.

Except apparently someone did hear it, because she heard a voice murmuring, “Here, I’ve got you,” and a warm wet cloth dabbed at her eyes. 

“Just a little blood and sweat and oil,” the voice went on. “Should’ve gotten that off already, but I didn’t think you’d come to so soon. You are one tough Tosh.”

Tosh forced her eyes open. Owen sat beside her bed, no worse for wear. She tried again to speak, but coughed instead.

“I got out of the reactor,” he said. “Long story. I’ll bore you with it later. You shouldn’t have anything to drink yet, but you can suck on this.”

He reached into a paper cup and put a tiny, cold object into her mouth. An ice chip.

“Don’t try to talk yet,” he went on. “Let it melt.”

The ice chip melted in her mouth, soothing her dry throat one drop at a time. She swallowed, and managed to get out, “I thought you were dead.”

“Well…” He was trying for wry, but his expressive face crumpled into remembered grief, then passed through it into anger, and finally settled on a kind of baffled tenderness. “I thought you were dead! _You_ comforted _me_ through a nihilistic tantrum when you were bleeding to death!”

Tosh tried to answer, but her throat ran dry again. Owen slipped another ice chip between her lips without her having to ask for it. It was so intimate—his fingers in her mouth—but he did it in a professional way that removed all awkwardness or embarrassment. “It wasn’t to death. I didn’t die.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then.” His familiar sarcasm was oddly comforting. So was his quick return to anger when he went on, “You left a blood trail all the way down the steps! If I’d arrived ten minutes later—”

“Ice,” she interrupted him. She didn’t need it, exactly, or at least not as much as she had before. She just wanted him to touch her again, to reassure her that he was really there. That somehow, impossibly and again, she’d lost him and he’d come back anyway.

He gave her another chip. His hand started to move toward her cheek, as if to touch it and get some comfort for himself, but he jerked it away as if her skin would burn him.

“You can,” she said.

“Can what?”

She knew he knew, and a familiar frustration rose up in her. At him. At herself. Were they really going to step back into that old, worn out dance?

 _I didn’t leave a blood trail all the way down the steps to lose this chance_ , she thought. 

“I love you,” she said. He looked utterly gobsmacked, so she repeated it. Twice, to get it through his thick head, and then she began to cough again. Before he could stop her mouth with ice, she managed to get out, “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear!”

“I heard,” Owen said. He still looked like he’d been hit over the head with a brick. “I heard… Look, Tosh…”

She swallowed. “Look what?”

“I know what a dead body feels like. I've autopsied enough of them. It's tough, skin. When it's body temperature, it feels soft. But when it's room temperature, it's like rubber. You really have to push to get the scalpel in. Who’d want to kiss a man with cold corpse lips?”

“I would, if they’re yours,” said Tosh. “Anyway, I’ve been sucking ice. Mine are colder.”

His gaze fastened on her with a kind of hunger, then darted away. She thought of telling him that for a dead man, his eyes were very alive. But she couldn’t think of him as dead. Dead was gone. Dead was never being able to talk to someone again, or see them around the Hub, or complain about Myfanwy’s habit of swooping down low enough to blow around the notes you’d just gotten organized. Dead men couldn’t feed you ice chips or care that your throat was dry or shout at you for not telling them you'd been shot. 

But if she said any of that, he’d argue. Besides, she was abruptly very tired. “You still owe me a date.”

“You still owe _me_ a date. So you better rest up for it.” 

She thought that was a no. But he ducked down and kissed her, on the lips and long enough for it to be more than a gesture. Her mouth was cold enough that his felt warm, and when she managed to lift her hand and rest it on the back of his neck, she could ruffle his short hair like she’d always wanted to do. 

There was a slight edge to his voice when he said, “Feel good, does it?”

“Yes. Soft and prickly. Like a baby hedgehog.”

“That’s sexy…. Here, careful with the IV.” He caught her hand, but only to steady and support it, not to dislodge it. Tosh, who was tiring rapidly, was grateful for that.

“Can you feel it?” The weakness in her voice unnerved her. Owen lifted her hand and laid it back down on the sheets. She wished she hadn’t asked, and not just because of that. He’d told them again and again that he couldn’t feel pain, couldn’t feel anything. Her question did nothing but display her neediness and rub in his loss. “Sorry…”

“Don’t.” His voice was sharp again. But he hadn’t let go of her hand. His felt cool, but the pressure of his grip was comforting. She’d already decided she wouldn’t say anything more when he went on, “I can feel pressure. I have proprioception—I know where my body is in space—”

“I know what proprioception is.”

“Of course you do. So yeah, I could feel it. The weight of it. The shape. The gooseflesh reflex is gone, but I felt the pull when you tugged at my hair. It’s not the same, but… it’s not nothing.”

Tosh was too exhausted to reply. She wanted to tell him how glad she was, and to ask him to stay. But the thought of articulating all that seemed like such an enormous effort that she couldn’t even work out where to begin.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll still be here when you wake up again. Benefits of not having to sleep myself.”

Tosh was already drifting off. She glanced toward her hand, and saw that Owen was still holding it. She was so close to sleep that she’d had to look; she couldn’t feel the bed under her body, let alone his hand over hers. But she knew it was there, and would still be there when she awoke. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t feel it. Just knowing was enough.


End file.
